The Growth of Yunior's Character

Junot Diaz’s Drown is a collection of short stories, many of which feature a common narrator, Yunior. As we progressed from one story to the next, we began to build a characterization of Yunior as a person. Often our characterization is in the form of a comparison to other characters mainly his brother, and no I will try and form my general description of Yunior that I got from the handful of stories he appeared in. I think that as a character, Yunior grows over the years, and because we see Yunior, as the narrator, at varying ages, we are exposed to this growth.

The first time we meet Yunior is in “Ysrael”. In this short story, Yunior is very young both in actual age, and in maturity (especially when compared to his brother). This first story is important for setting the groundwork of Yunior’s character, but not for the major aspects of Yunior, because as we discussed in class, at this point in the story he does not have much of a personality. By this I mean that he spends most of the story following his brother around. The interactions between Yunior and his brother are what gives us the most insight into Yunior’s character. From this first story, we see that young Yunior is much less confident than his older brother, and this fact will come up in future stories as well.

The second story is “Fiesta” and in this short story, Yunior is older and in a different setting: the United States. This time the important dynamic is that of Yunior and his father. Here we are shown the shy version of Yunior, because of the aggressive nature of both his father and brother. Yunior is still a young kid who is trying to cope with a difficult family situation at home with a cheating father, and this situation helps to steer his growth later on.

“How to date a browngirl” I believe is, chronologically, the next Yunior story in this collection, and it takes place during his high school years. This was for me the most interesting story in terms of Yunior’s personality, because I was able to see a slight change from before. This story takes the form of a “how to”. Yet it is more than that, because it lets us in on the experiences of Yunior throughout his high school years, and what he was thinking during this time. My thoughts of Yunior’s personality after reading this specific short story was that he was a mix of his mother and his brother.

My reasoning for thinking this is that throughout the story, Yunior thinks about the girls as sexual objects that he is trying to get with, which is typical of his brother, but there are also points where he is nice to them which reminded me of his mother. There were times when Yunior was talking about presenting himself well to the girl and her mother, which would be something his mother would say. I know this mainly because of the cigarette scene in another story when the mother said “Your father gave me the whole pack”. This mix of brother and mother made me think that Yunior was now growing into his own person, which makes his personality all the more interesting.

There was one final major aspect to Yunior that comes up in the short story collection, and that is understanding. This is a trait that is typical of an older person, and it is only fitting that the best example of this is in “Negocios”. We assume that Yunior is narrating this further into the future, and we are given a glimpse of what Yunior has become. Although the story is based around the father, and his experience in the U.S., as we talked about in class, the way that the narrator (Yunior) depicts his father, that is in a fair and understanding way, tells a lot about how Yunior has grown. Since he does not look down on his father but rather states the facts, it leads me to believe that he has grown from the boy who had no individuality into his own understanding person.

The second person

Having finished both Lorrie Moore’s Self-Helf as well as Junot Diaz’s Drown, I have now been exposed to a number of second person stories. To talk, in detail, about the second person writing in each of these stories would be too much for any blog post, and thus instead this blog post will talk about the general aspects of what I have seen, and I would love to hear your thoughts.

I am going to start the discussion about the second person writing by giving my thoughts on how this style effected each of the stories we saw this in. The first story was titled “How to be an other woman.” In this short story which was part of the Lorrie Moore collection, I was exposed to how the use of this second person can have an effect on the story.

Looking back on the class discussion as well as my thoughts on the story, I believe that How to be an Other Woman is a great story to serve as an introduction to the second person narrative. There is one main reason for this, being that it followed a very straightforward plot. In the story, the timeline was linear, without many flashbacks, and this helps us to focus on the narrator's actions in the story. The focus on the actions is especially important, because it is a “How To” meaning that, in theory, the reader should be paying close attention to those directions on what to do. This first story, because of its plot was a great introduction to the second person.

Now for how the second person changed this first short story. In “How to be an Other Woman,” the opening scene tells us, in classic Lorrie Moore fashion, to meet a man in a certain place under certain conditions. This specificity as well as many other parts of the story let us, the reader, know that this is not a true “how to” guide that you can simply follow, but rather the second person is just a different way to tell the story. Since we are alerted to the fact that this is not truly a guide on how to be an other woman, we wonder why it is in the second person. I believe that one major possibility, is that the second person is a way to make the story more personal. In class, we discussed how the word “You” helps the reader to imagine themselves in the situation. In this first story, I was introduced to the second person in an easily understandable way, due to the simple nature of the plot. Also, the second person allowed me to better connect with the narrator, because it forced me to put myself in her shoes, which really made the story more powerful.

The second story to use this narrative style was in the same collection, but his time creatively named “How.” I found this story to be very similar to “How to be an Other Woman” in more ways than just the name. The reasons for the second person were still there, but I found one major difference, which was the use of different choices. This aspect was much more prominent in “How” and is seen throughout the story. This addition to the short story makes the plot slightly more complex, as it gives the reader a couple of options, but it also makes the narrative more general. Because the narrator gives two or even three different options for a couple of different scenarios, the story seems to apply to more people’s situations which makes it much for of a “How To” guide.

The final story that featured the second person was “How to Date a Browngirl” which was written by Junot Diaz. The second person in this story had a very different purpose when compared to the previous two stories. The first thing I noticed was how little Diaz used the word “you.” Before, we had talked about how this word made the story more personal, and thus without “you” I felt much less of a personal connection to Yunior (the narrator). This in essence made the story even more resemblant of a true how to guide, because it does not aim to help you connect to the narrator, but rather just inform you of what is happening.

As we saw in “How,” the use of “or” and different paths in the story can be an important part of a second person narrative, and this story is no different. Again, I saw the plot branch off into a couple of different possible scenarios, but this time the narrator went much more in depth into each possibility. I felt that in “How,” the “or” was mainly for variety, but in “How to Date a Browngirl” the narrator truly gives us four different scenarios depending on who you are on a date with. I found this to be extremely complex, especially since there were parts of the story in which Diaz did not clearly tell us which scenario the narrator was depicting. Thankfully, I had already been exposed to the second person narrative part, because of the previous two short stories.

Overall, I think that these three stories really helped to show me what a second person narrative is like, as well as what some advantages to it are. In the three stories, I believe that I saw an escalation in complexity, but also a variety in the reasoning for the second person. I found that these three stories were enlightening, and I really enjoyed reading the second person stories.